Marietta College announces strategic changes
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Marietta College formally announced a new strategic plan last week.
On Jan. 30 the school announced it will officially launch its strategic plan, Marietta Forward, in July 2024, according to a media release.
Marietta Forward started with an external study by AGB Consulting, a subsequent internal review and assessment by the college's Planning Committee and efforts of the President's cabinet and other stakeholders.
The Marietta College Board of Trustees approved Marietta Forward in October 2023, according to a copy of the strategic plan on MC's website.
The projected cost of Marietta Forward for fiscal years 2024 to 2028 is $17,722,849. When projected revenue and savings brought about by the strategic plan are included, the projected cost is $4,666,738, according to the plan.
Funding for Marietta Forward will come from new funding sources such as new program revenues, grants and philanthropic gifts, as well as through the redistribution of current resources, according to a strategic plan overview that is on the MC website.
This strategic plan will guide MC into the future, according to College President Margarter L. Drugovich.
"Marietta Forward responds to the changing environment within higher education," Drugovich said in the release. "The plan includes significant expansion of critical support services that will help to ensure the success of every Marietta College student. Our new and enhanced program offerings will better serve the needs of both traditional and non-traditional students. This is a practical, actionable, strategic plan, focused on results, that will continue our high-quality, relevant education that prepares students for success after graduation."
According to the plan, Marietta Forward encompasses five strategic initiatives: fully implement Student-Ready College initiatives; strengthen current academic programs; develop new education programs focused on non-traditional student education and workforce development; identify and launch new academic programs; and create a campus culture of support for individual leadership, inclusion and belonging.
Marietta Forward contains a range of plans related to the five strategic initiatives.
MC plans on addressing recommendations listed in the Student Ready College Quality Initiative approved by the Higher Learning Commission as part of the school's reaccreditation cycle.
These recommendations include measures such as increasing staff at the Academic Resource Center including adding more professionals for Academic Coaching and Peer Mentoring and Tutoring and Writing Center Support and hiring a full-time position in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to support student engagement.
The school also wants to hire a diversity recruiter position in Admissions with a recruiting budget to support efforts to recruit more diverse populations. This had previously been a position at the college but it had lost funding, the plan said.
MC will also implement campus-wide customer service training campus-wide that will including creating and publishing how-to guides for procedures in one location online, providing a resource directory to families, designating a single office as the Help Desk location to send students if they aren't certain where to go, providing and requiring training to be held regularly for students and employees for DEI topics/issues that includes multiple layers of diversity beyond race and ethnicity, including but not limited to transfer students, commuters, first-generation, LGBTQ+, Appalachian, socio-economic,Black indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), neurodiversity, etc., according to the plan.
MC also wants to provide relevant academic programs of interest to a critical mass of college-going students and to reduce the number of and expenses associated with low enrollment academic offerings, the plan said.
The college will identify programs whose growth potential does not project positive returns-on-investment and reduce or eliminate investment in low growth and/or low enrollment programs. The college already started these efforts when they got rid of 10 programs in October 2023. According to the MC website, the programs that were discontinued were undergraduate programs in Asian Studies, Environmental Engineering, ESL & Linguistics, Global Leadership Studies, Land & Energy Management, Music Education, Music Therapy, Spanish and Vocal Performance and a graduate program in Athletic Training.
MC plans to increase investment in existing programs with current high or potentially high demand. The school will review each academic program every four years, meaning they will review 25% of programs per year. It will also identify and track direct and indirect costs of programs. MC expects to save approximately $1.55 million by the end of FY 2026 through program elimination, the plan said.
As part of Marietta Forward, MC plans to hire a director for the Center for Earth, Energy and Environment (CEEE) by August 2024 and fully launch the center by August 2025. The school wants to fully integrate its petroleum engineering program with programming in emerging, green technology/environmental/sustainable energy system offerings that will be offered by the CEEE. The school also plans on developing programming and curricular innovations at the McDonough Center for Leadership and Business and finalizing the leadership structure of the center by March 1, 2024, the plan said.
MC will implement non-degree workforce development programs by July 2025 as part of Marietta Forward. The college plans to do this through offering regional executive education and workforce development programs, the plan said.
MC will create the Marietta College Division of Executive Education and Workforce Development to administer these new programs. The college expects to have ten professional achievement badges/programs developed and implemented by Fall 2025, 20 total badges/programs developed and implemented by Fall 2026 and 10 executive extension programs offered on or before July 2027. Marietta College will formally launch the Marietta College Division of Executive Education and Workforce Development in May 2024.
MC also plans to offer new, in-demand areas of study. It will make decisions on which programs to add based on market-demand research and feasibility studies. The school will evaluate potential areas for investment including Communication, Graphic Design, Musical Theater, Data Science, Justice Studies and Health Administration, according to the plan.
The college will create a new subdivision in the Division of Academic Affairs called Marietta College Online, to market online programs. It will launch five new undergraduate programs, three of which will be on campus and two of which will be online only; five new online only graduate programs; and two 3-2 undergraduate/graduate articulation based programs, the plan said.
According to the MC website, the existing 3/2 programs involve students spending the first three years of the program getting their undergraduate degree and the last two years getting their graduate degree.
Marietta College will identify the three new on campus undergraduate programs by July 1, 2025 and launch the first program in Fall 2025, the second program by Fall 2026 and the third program by Fall 2027. The school will identify the two online undergraduate programs by July 1, 2024, and launch them by Fall 2026. It will identify the five online graduate programs by July 1, 2024.
It has chosen the first graduate online program, Sustainability Leadership, and will launch it by Fall 2024. The second online graduate program will be Clinical Mental Health and will be launched by Fall 2025. The third program will be related to the CEEE and may possibly be an energy systems program and will be launched by Fall 2025. The other two graduate online programs have not been identified yet and will be launched by Fall 2027.
To provide a more welcoming, inclusive environment for students and employees from all backgrounds and cultures, the college plans on increasing its diversity similar to the diversity of the college-going population in the region. The region is defined as Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan.
The strategic plan included information on student and faculty diversity at MC. African American undergraduate student enrollment was highest in fall 2013 with 80 students and the number of African American students has decreased to 47 as of fall 2022. Hispanic undergraduate student enrollment was at its highest at 40 in fall 2013 and now it has declined to 33 in fall 2022. Enrollment of Asian undergraduate students was 16 in fall 2013, increased to 19 in fall 2014 and is now down to 9 as of fall 2022. The college hasn't had an American/Alaska native undergraduate student since Fall 2019. The number of Hawaiian/Pacific Islander undergraduate students has increased for MC. The school had no Hawaiian/Pacific Islander undergraduate students until fall 2022, when they gained one student. MC's full time faculty numbers are similar. The college has remained steady in the number of Asian full time faculty members with there being 4 in fall 2019, 2020 and 2021, and five in fall 2022 and 2023. There was one African American full time faculty member for fall 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. There were zero in fall 2023. There were two Hispanic full time faculty members for fall 2019 and 2020, and three for fall 2021 and 2022. There was one for fall 2023.
The college plans to increase diversity in the employee community, increase retention of both diverse students and employees and increase the number and proportion of students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups each successive year of Marietta Forward, the plan said.